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The Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/08/AR2006100801015_pf.html
Rev'd Up
Archbishop Desmond Tutu Looks Back, Definitely Not in Anger
By Lynne Duke
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, October 9, 2006; C01
NEW YORK
The cleric is laughing. He laughs a lot. He can't help it. Desmond Tutu is tickled by his life, his faith, his God, so the giggles just bubble out, cresting sometimes in a hilariously showy cackle. The former Anglican archbishop of Cape Town, the David to the old Goliath that was apartheid, Tutu can be seized with this joy at just about any time.
He might be talking about weighty issues like the moral imperative, our inherent sense of right and wrong, and how "everyone has an instinct for freedom because God has imbued each one of us with a gift of freedom," and here comes that infectious giggle.
Or he's cracking up as he tells of the "uncanniness" of being at Madame Tussauds' some years ago and wondering, as he watched a workman carrying the waxen Tutu, "What am I doing under his armpit?" Or he's expounding on the limits of racial reconciliation in his homeland, South Africa, and how some whites reacted to him as would an "arrogant, racist, superior being who says, 'What gives you the right to be such a cheeky native?' " And then he's cackling full out, rocking side to side in his chair.
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The Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/08/AR2006100800855_pf.html
Lawmaker Saw Foley Messages In 2000
Page Notified GOP Rep. Kolbe
By Jonathan Weisman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, October 9, 2006; A01
A Republican congressman knew of disgraced former representative Mark Foley's inappropriate Internet exchanges as far back as 2000 and personally confronted Foley about his communications.
A spokeswoman for Rep. Jim Kolbe (R-Ariz.) confirmed yesterday that a former page showed the congressman Internet messages that had made the youth feel uncomfortable with the direction Foley (R-Fla.) was taking their e-mail relationship. Last week, when the Foley matter erupted, a Kolbe staff member suggested to the former page that he take the matter to the clerk of the House, Karen Haas, said Kolbe's press secretary, Korenna Cline.
The revelation pushes back by at least five years the date when a member of Congress has acknowledged learning of Foley's behavior with former pages. A timeline issued by House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) suggested that the first lawmakers to know, Rep. John M. Shimkus (R-Ill.), the chairman of the House Page Board, and Rep. Rodney Alexander (R-La.), became aware of "over-friendly" e-mails only last fall. It also expands the universe of players in the drama beyond members, either in leadership or on the page board.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/09/world/asia/09korea.html?ei=5094&en=a491b0fad3e8d82b&hp=&ex=1160452800&partner=homepage&pagewanted=print
The New York Times
October 9, 2006
N. Korea Reports 1st Nuclear Arms Test
By DAVID E. SANGER
WASHINGTON, Monday, Oct. 9 - North Korea said Sunday night that it had set off its first nuclear test, becoming the eighth country in history, and arguably the most unstable and most dangerous, to join the club of nuclear weapons states.
The test came just two days after the country was warned by the United Nations Security Council that the action could lead to severe consequences.
American officials cautioned that they had not yet received any confirmation that the test had occurred, and the United States Geological Survey said it had detected no seismic activity on the Korean Peninsula.
But senior Bush administration officials said they had little reason to doubt the country's announcement.
In South Korea, the country that fought a bloody war with the North for three years and has lived with an uneasy truce and failed efforts at reconciliation for more than half a century, officials announced they believed an explosion occurred around 10:36 p.m. New York time - 11:36 a.m. Monday in Korea - registering 3.58 on the Richter scale.
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The New York Times
http://select.nytimes.com/2006/10/09/opinion/09krugman.html?pagewanted=print
October 9, 2006
Op-Ed Columnist
The Paranoid Style
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Last week Dennis Hastert, the speaker of the House, explained the real cause of the Foley scandal. "The people who want to see this thing blow up," he said, "are ABC News and a lot of Democratic operatives, people funded by George Soros."
Most news reports, to the extent they mentioned Mr. Hastert's claim at all, seemed to treat it as a momentary aberration. But it wasn't his first outburst along these lines. Back in 2004, Mr. Hastert said: "You know, I don't know where George Soros gets his money. I don't know where - if it comes overseas or from drug groups or where it comes from."
Does Mr. Hastert really believe that George Soros and his operatives, conspiring with the evil news media, are responsible for the Foley scandal? Yes, he probably does. For one thing, demonization of Mr. Soros is widespread in right-wing circles. One can only imagine what people like Mr. Hastert or Tony Blankley, the editorial page editor of The Washington Times, who once described Mr. Soros as "a Jew who figured out a way to survive the Holocaust," say behind closed doors.
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The Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/08/AR2006100800933_pf.html
China's Iron Grip
Beijing Harasses Dissidents -- Even in America
By Fred Hiatt
Monday, October 9, 2006; A17
It's no secret that China in recent years has stepped up its repression of political, religious and journalistic freedoms, to only the mousiest of objections from the outside world.
Less well known is that China feels so unconstrained that it is brazenly harassing dissidents in the suburbs of Washington, D.C., too.
Just ask Rebiya Kadeer, who now lives in Fairfax County. In April, Kadeer's grandson noticed four men videotaping and photographing the family's ground-floor apartment from a car parked outside. He called to his mother, who wrote down their license plate number. Kadeer passed that on to Rep. Frank Wolf (R-Va.), who enlisted the FBI, which determined that three of the four men in the rented car were Chinese agents.
Of course, surveillance and intimidation are the least of what China's regime has inflicted on Kadeer. She was the victim of a mysterious hit-and-run accident in January; her children back home in China have been beaten and jailed; she herself spent nearly six years in prison.
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The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/09/opinion/09mon2.html?pagewanted=print
October 9, 2006
Editorial
The White House and Mr. Abramoff
The sordid Mark Foley controversy has diverted public attention from another major Washington ethics scandal - the influence peddling involving the disgraced former superlobbyist Jack Abramoff. That's good news for the Bush administration, given freshly heightened suspicion that its dealings with Mr. Abramoff and his sleazy K Street operation were far cozier than it is willing to admit.
The White House has consistently played down the ties key officials like Karl Rove had with Mr. Abramoff, who pleaded guilty last January to conspiring to bribe public officials. But the administration has declined to publicly provide detailed answers or grant full access to relevant documents needed to establish the truth.
A newly released report, prepared with unusual bipartisan backing by the House Government Reform Committee, paints a different reality. It reveals that between January 2001 and March 2004, Mr. Abramoff and members of his staff had some 485 contacts with key White House officials, including at least 10 direct contacts between Mr. Abramoff and Mr. Rove. Billing records and e-mail messages unearthed by the committee indicate that Mr. Abramoff and his colleagues spent nearly $25,000 on meals and tickets for White House officials.
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The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/09/us/politics/09michigan.html?pagewanted=print
October 9, 2006
In the Race for Governor of Michigan, the Struggling Economy Is Topic A
By MONICA DAVEY
THREE RIVERS, Mich., Oct. 4 - If for much of the country the economic signs seem relatively healthy, they do not in places like this town. A plastics plant nearby closed days before Christmas, a company that makes mirror parts for cars has shrunk and the mayor says he heard talk, just this month, of possible cuts at a factory that makes drive shafts.
And so, while elections in other regions have turned to matters like national security, the war in Iraq and Congressional scandal, Michigan's races for governor and, to a lesser degree, the United States Senate are hinging this year almost entirely on the struggling economy and the question of who is to blame for it.
In the state's cloud of sinking numbers, Republicans hope for an opportunity to pick up two positions. In other states with once-robust industrial bases, including Ohio, Indiana and Pennsylvania, economic worries are playing a similar, if far more subtle and layered, role this fall.
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The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/09/business/09religious.html?ei=5094&en=fa9379691735615c&hp=&ex=1160452800&partner=homepage&pagewanted=print
October 9, 2006
Where Faith Abides, Employees Have Few Rights
By DIANA B. HENRIQUES
J. Jeffrey Heck, a lawyer in Mansfield, Ohio, usually sits on management's side of the table. "The only employee cases I take are those that poke my buttons," he said. "And this one really did."
His client was a middle-aged novice training to become a nun in a Roman Catholic religious order in Toledo. She said she had been dismissed by the order after she became seriously ill - including a diagnosis of breast cancer.
In her complaint, the novice, Mary Rosati, said she had visited her doctor with her immediate supervisor and the mother superior. After the doctor explained her treatment options for breast cancer, the complaint continued, the mother superior announced: "We will have to let her go. I don't think we can take care of her."
Some months later Ms. Rosati was told that the mother superior and the order's governing council had decided to dismiss her after concluding that "she was not called to our way of life," according to the complaint. Along with her occupation and her home, she lost her health insurance, Mr. Heck said. Ms. Rosati, who still lacks health insurance but whose cancer is in remission, said she preferred not to discuss her experience because of her continuing love for the church.
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http://insidehighered.com/news/2006/10/09/religion
Oct. 9
Not So Godless After All
Listen to many critics of higher education, and you would think that faith had been long ago banished from the quad - or at least all those quads not at places like Notre Dame or Liberty or Yeshiva.
It turns out though, that there are plenty of believers on college faculties. Professors may be more skeptical of God and religion than Americans on average, but academic views and practices on religion are diverse, believers outnumber atheists and agnostics, and plenty of professors can be found regularly attending religious services.
These are some of the findings of a national survey of professors at all types of institutions, conducted for a presentation sponsored by the Social Science Research Council. The survey was conducted and analyzed by two sociologists, Neil Gross of Harvard University and Solon Simmons of George Mason University.
In March, researchers at the University of California at Los Angeles released a study indicating that more than 80 percent of college professors consider themselves spiritual. The new study focuses more on religious belief - whether professors believe in God, attend services, etc., and how they classify themselves within their faiths.
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http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2006/10/09/religious_right_wields_clout?mode=PF
The Boston Globe
Religious right wields clout
Secular groups losing funding amid pressure
By Michael Kranish, Globe Staff | October 9, 2006
For six decades, CARE has been a vital ally to the US government. It supplied the famed CARE packages to Europe's starving masses after World War II, and its work with the poor has been celebrated by US presidents. So the group was thrilled when it received a major contract from the Bush administration to fight AIDS in Africa and Asia.
But this time, instead of accolades came attacks. Religious conservatives contended that the $50 million contract, under which CARE was to distribute money to both secular and faith-based groups, was being guided by an organization out of touch with religious values.
Senator Rick Santorum , a Pennsylvania Republican, charged last year that CARE was ``anti-American" and ``promoted a pro-prostitution agenda." Focus on the Family, the religious group headed by James Dobson , said the agency that delivered the contract, the US Agency for International Development, was a ``liberal cancer."The complaining paid off. CARE's $50 million contract is being phased out this year
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The Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/08/AR2006100800358_pf.html
Moscow Rally Memorializes Slain Reporter
By Peter Finn
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, October 9, 2006; A12
MOSCOW, Oct. 8 -- Hundreds of Russians attended a rally in Moscow on Sunday to commemorate Anna Politkovskaya, a veteran journalist who was fatally shot in an apparent contract killing Saturday, and the country's top law enforcement official said he was taking personal charge of the investigation because of its "particular importance and its wide resonance within society."
"The investigation will focus on possible links between the killing and Politkovskaya's work," said Marina Gridneva, a spokeswoman for the prosecutor general, Yuri Chaika, who is now heading the probe into the journalist's death.
The killing of Politkovskaya, a fierce critic of the Kremlin and its proxies in the conflict in Chechnya, was the second assassination of a crusading figure in Moscow in less than a month. In September, Andrei Kozlov, a Central Bank official who had led a campaign against corruption, was gunned down as he left a soccer match in the city. That case remains unsolved.
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The Miami Herald
http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/opinion/15713559.htm?template=contentModules/printstory.jsp
Posted on Mon, Oct. 09, 2006
FOLEY SCANDAL
It all could backfire on Democrats
BY JONAH GOLDBERG
JonahsColumn@aol.com
The Democrats prayed for an October surprise and, like manna from heaven, a hypocritical, sexually disturbed Florida Republican dropped into their laps. They looked at the cyber-stalking ephebophile and said, ``Behold, this is good.''
Overnight, Nancy Pelosi has emerged as the nation's soccer grandmom, leading the mob alleging a GOP cover-up of a supposed sex predator and pedophile. (Former U.S. Rep Mark Foley may or may not be a predator, but pedophiles don't dig post- pubescent teens; ephebophiles do.)
Almost as instantaneously, Democratic candidates denounced their opponents for taking money from Foley, as if acceptance of such funds constituted support for pederasty.
Let me be clear: I carry no water for the House GOP
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http://news.tbo.com/news/nationworld/MGBYLY572TE.html
Democrats Poised To Assume Majority Of Governorships
By MARK Z. BARABAK Los Angeles Times
Published: Oct 9, 2006
For the first time since the 1994 Republican landslide, Democrats are poisedto attain a majority of the nation's governorships, giving the party animportant political toehold regardless of who wins the battle to controlCongress.
As voters itch for change, election handicappers forecast Democratic gainsof four to eight seats on Nov. 7, saying the Republican-held governor'schairs in New York and Ohio are the most likely to switch parties. TheDemocrats must gain four governorships to hold a majority nationwide.
Massachusetts, Arkansas, Colorado and Maryland also look promising forDemocratic candidates, according to campaign analysts, favoring several morepickups. In Massachusetts - the land of Kennedys - a win would mark thefirst time a Democratic governor has sat under the gold Capitol dome in morethan a dozen years.
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http://www.news-journalonline.com/scripts/printme.asp
October 09, 2006
'Accountable' schools or student automatons?
By BILL ARCHER
COMMUNITY VOICES
Public education will need many years to repair the damage it has suffered under the recent onslaught of state and federal high stakes testing programs that are attempting to force all students to reach what amounts to a "homogenized" level of achievement at the same time.
But any goal that is contrary to the one achieved by an undistorted educational process that results in the discovery of new ideas and concepts is a wrong goal.
The present state and federal administrations' assembly line strategy that is supposed to result in the production of so many identical units doesn't apply to education unless what is wanted is a robotic sameness. Sameness in beliefs, values, philosophical and political perspectives that culminates in a product that believes it is unacceptable and perhaps even criminally wrong to think differently is an automaton of the state.
Under the banner word of "accountability," the state and federal governments have conspired to create an education system that will mold citizens into the feckless, fearful and forgetfully mindless peons that will do as they are directed, believe what they are told and forget about what true intellectual freedom without boundaries ever felt like. But the "accountability" they refer to has nothing to do with what most of us still remember as accountability.
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http://www.palmbeachpost.com/opinion/content/opinion/epaper/2006/10/09/a22a_drugs_edit_1009.html
Improve Part D, or let seniors buy from Canada
Palm Beach Post Editorial
Monday, October 09, 2006
U.S. Customs and Border Patrol agents, at the urging of politicians, havestopped the politically motivated enforcement of a long-overlooked policy ofseizing prescription drugs imported from Canada.
The timing of the seizures - two days after enrollment opened Nov. 15 forMedicare Part D - and the end of the enforcement - a month before theNovember election - is no coincidence. When the federal government wantedseniors to start signing up last fall for prescription-drug insurance, theseizures began.
Early this year, when the confusion of Part D discouraged seniors from enrolling,
Customs increased the seizures, and Medicare publicized a May 15 enrollmentdeadline and financial penalty for missing it.
Now, as GOP congressmen are facing angry seniors on the campaign trail,Customs is shifting its policy, which has blocked shipment of prescription drugs to
40,000 Americans since November.
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The Miami Herald
http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/local/15713536.htm
Posted on Mon, Oct. 09, 2006
NAACP struggling to regain members
BY DARRAN SIMON AND ANDREA ROBINSON
arobinson@MiamiHerald.com
The nation's oldest and largest civil rights organization is fighting to regain the membership it had in decades past.South Florida's black population has grown over the past two decades, but membership in the region's two largest NAACP branches has plummeted, to the dismay of civil rights communities in Broward and Miami-Dade counties.
The Miami-Dade NAACP, which boasted 5,000 members in the late 1980s, now has 500 to 600, said Adora Obi Nweze, the state NAACP president who founded the branch.
Membership in the Fort Lauderdale branch was about 2,000 in the mid- to late 1980s, said Fort Lauderdale Commissioner Carlton B. Moore, who was branch president then. As of last month, membership was about 250, according to one member.
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http://www.sun-sentinel.com/business/local/sfl-109cellphonework,0,7663516.story?coll=sfla-business-front
The tricky business of private cell phone calls at work
By Patrick Kampert
Chicago Tribune
October 9, 2006, 10:15 AM EDT
CHICAGO -- Liz Calderon of Cicero thought she was safe when one memorablecall came through on her cell phone.
She was doing temp work after being let go from a previous job for filingfor worker's compensation. The caller was her attorney, who was trying tohelp her obtain the benefits she had been denied. So she borrowed anunoccupied office for a couple of minutes for some complete privacy.
"The person who managed me was out on travel, so I ducked in there," shesaid.
After the conversation was over, the man in the next office saw Calderonlooking distressed and called her in.
"Is everything OK? Because I overheard your conversation," the exec said. "Ijust want you to know that if there's anything I can do, please let me know."
Even today, the moment is etched in Calderon's mind.
"I was so embarrassed," she said.
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